The latest buzz on Wall Street and Dalal Street is this - Phaneesh
Murthy, President & CEO of iGate
Global Solutions has been shown the Gate due to his involvement in a sexual
harassment case with a subordinate employee. This is the second time such an incident is happening in Phaneesh's career.
Phaneesh
Murthy can indeed now don the title of ‘quintiple disgraced I.T Hero’ and ask how come?
Disgraced
iGate due to his latest adventure-cum-misconduct relating to sexual harrasment
Disgraced
Infosys due to his misconduct relating to sexual harassment and consequently
Disgraced
his alma mater IIM, Ahmedabad
Disgraced
his alma mater IIT, Chennai
Disgraced
all the Muthy’s on Planet Earth
Whether
its Bill Clinton or Phaneesh Murthy, a male chauvinist pig cannot go scot free
otherwise such acts of sexual harassment will be a disgrace to the entire human
race – past, present and future! So, hats off to the lightning speed decisions
taken by Infosys as well as iGATE which reflects high standards of integrity followed by such companies and sends out signals to the world at large
something like – nobody is above the law. After all Phaneesh Murthy was
President & CEO of iGate. And you bet if
Phaneesh Murthy had done such disgraceful things in a PSU then there
would be a never ending Enquiry Committee, CBI chargesheet, High Court
hearings, Supreme Court hearings by which time he would have as well stayed on
to enjoy his farewell party retiring as Chairman of concerned PSU!
Well
who on earth is this guy Phaneesh Murthy? Well, this hero who is now a zero
worked silently and furiously as Head of Worldwide Sales & Marketing at
Infosys during its Initial phase of growth. He was a Star and the Blue Eyed boy of Mr. Narayana Murthy having taken the company's sales from a mere 2 Million $'s to over 700 Million $'s during his tenure - A Huge Track record in any sense.
He was forced to resign in 2003
for sexually harassing Executive Secretary Reka Maximovitch and
this time he was not so lucky - he was sacked by iGate for sexually harassing
a subordinate employee. And
as you would expect Phaneesh Murthy has bluntly denied his earlier act of Sexual Harassment in
Infosy, his latest act in iGate and you bet he will deny his future act too!
After all, it takes guts to admit that you have done something wrong and a
wrong against the weaker sex is simply unforgivable.
Murthy joined
iGate Global Solutions [ former Mascot Systems ] as CEO and has grown the
company rapidly after restructuring it. The high point in his career in iGate
was the acquisition of Patni Computers in 2011 and taking iGate at the doorstep of Tier-1 IT Vendors.
Now,
the billion dollar question that is being asked by one and all - whither iGate without Phaneesh?:
Well, friends the
answer may appear baffling but the fact is:
the answer is pretty simple and straight forward.
Agreed, Phaneesh
Murthy has done wonders in iGate Global, a company which provides a range of
services/solutions to customers spread across North America, Canada, Europe and
Asia-Pacific. Its technological expertise ranges across ERP, CRM, IVR, Product
Engineering etc. At this juncture, we all need to remember that ‘no one in this
world is indispensable’ and men have come and men have gone but the show must
go on and it will go on, always.
The
company has now appointed Gerhard Watzinger as its interim Chief Executive with
immediate effect and this person will now have to embrace the daunting task of
managing 28000 employees and 300 customers
IGate
beat market estimates in the first quarter [ Jan-Mar ], Net Profit surged 44
per cent to USD 35 million. Revenues were up 4 per cent to USD 274 million. The
company had a deal pipeline of USD 3.5 billion as at end March. However, the
company is sitting on a huge pile of Debt of close to USD 1 billion which was
used to acquire Patni Computers for USD 1.22 billion.With court approvals
pending, the merger process is expected to complete sometime during fag end of
this CY.
Conclusion
: So long as we have companies like Infosys and iGate that excel in maintaining
high standards of Corporate Governance,
the retail investor fraternity should never fear the markets and must
come out of their cave and embrace good stocks that will present them with good
returns time and again.
- Team HBJ Capital